And it only took founding a new journal to get the results published.

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It's not often you come across a scientific paper which notes that the information it covers is like something "seen on the television series Monster Quest." And you rarely read a paper which concludes, "The data conclusively proves that the Sasquatch exist as an extant hominin and are a direct maternal descendant of modern humans." But today, we have such a paper—and there's nothing usual about it, including the journal where it appears.

Back in December, our own Nate Anderson drove me to the bottle with a flurry of questions about cryptozoology. One of the big motivators of Nate's interest in sasquatch was a report that a Texas group had sequenced the creature's genome. Not surprisingly, the team behind this startling research had some trouble publishing a paper describing their results.

By all appearances, they've solved that problem... by establishing a brand new journal, called De Novo (I'm not kidding; they apparently bought an existing journal and renamed it). The journal's site appears to be a mix of clip art and some basic HTML. Though it claims to be "open access," the site actually charges $30 to see the bigfoot paper (although their press person was kind enough to provide Ars with a free copy). Payment requires a Google Wallet account.

Currently, the sasquatch genome report is all you can see. It's the only paper in Volume 1, Issue 1 of De Novo.

Running the data

Normally, publishers require genetic sequences to be submitted to a public database before a paper's publication, but there's a slight hitch here: the big public database requires a species identification, and sasquatch isn't officially a species. While the research team works on sorting out the species issues, it has provisionally settled on Homo sapiens cognatus. Some of the sequence data from the alleged bigfoot is available as downloadable supplements.

We're currently working with someone who has relevant genomics experience to do an analysis on those sequences, but much of the paper speaks for itself—and it says some very strange things. Figures in the paper show everything from iconic large footprints to old engravings of mythical ape-like creatures. There's even a photo of what seems to be a very shaggy carpet sleeping in the woods (with an embedded video, naturally).

The included clip of something shaggy in the woods.

Sasquatch Genome Project

The researchers (primarily a mix of forensics experts) have been collecting alleged bigfoot samples for years, accepting submissions from across North America. These include everything from stray hairs to clumps of fur with flesh attached to a pool of blood (collected after—wait for it—a sasquatch chewed on a pipe).

The team used fairly standard forensic techniques on these items: minimize contamination, gather the DNA of those who collected the samples, then ship everything out to contract facilities for analysis, with a large variety of tests being performed.

At this point, we get into some actual biology with enough details to analyze. And the details appear to point in the exact opposite direction of the authors' conclusions that bigfoot represents a recent hybridization between modern humans and an unknown species of primate.

To begin with, the mitochondrial DNA of the samples (when it can be isolated) clusters with that of modern humans. That isn't itself a problem if we assume that those doing the interbreeding were human females, but the DNA sequences come from a variety of different humans—16 in total. And most of these were "European or Middle Eastern in origin" with a few "African and American Indian haplotypes." Given the timing of the interbreeding, we should only be seeing Native American sequences here. The authors speculate that some humans may have walked across the ice through Greenland during the last glaciation, but there's absolutely no evidence for that. The best explanation here is contamination.

As far as the nuclear genome is concerned, the results are a mess. Sometimes the tests picked up human DNA. Other times, they didn't. Sometimes the tests failed entirely. The products of the DNA amplifications performed on the samples look about like what you'd expect when the reaction didn't amplify the intended sequence. And electron micrographs of the DNA isolated from these samples show patches of double- and single-stranded DNA intermixed. This is what you might expect if two distantly related species had their DNA mixed—the protein-coding sequences would hybridize, and the intervening sections wouldn't. All of this suggests modern human DNA intermingled with some other contaminant.

The authors' description of the sequence suggests that it's human DNA interspersed with sequence from some other primate—hence the interbreeding idea. But the best way to analyze this would be to isolate the individual segments of non-human DNA and see what species those best align with. If the authors have done that, they don't say. They also don't mention how long the typical segment of non-human DNA is. Assuming interbreeding took place as the authors surmise, these segments should be quite long, since there hasn't been that much time to recombine. The fact that the authors don't mention this at all is pretty problematic.

It's impossible to say anything for certain until we can get the sequences analyzed; hopefully, we'll have an update on that before the week is out. At the moment, though, all indications suggest that the sasquatch hunters are working on a mix of human DNA intermingled with that of some other (or several other) mammals.

137 Reader Comments

I notice Ars is simultaneously running a report in Weird Science, which concludes: "In other words, if a website starts telling people what they want to believe is wrong, they'll just decide that the website is unreliable. Accuracy cannot win. Sigh."

Time for a rethink for the Sasquatch doubters, I think.

This is exactly why I'm glad Ars came at this in such a respectable nature. It might be easy for people closer to scientific fields and in certain environments to notice the flaws in the study, but for a lot of people, it's not so obvious. If you go in laughing like crazy, you scare those people off, because then they think you're an elitist. And a lot of those people aren't necessarily close-minded Creationist backwater hillbillies either.

When released from the fetters of true science, the capacity of humans for mythmaking is unbounded.

Humans are mythmakers in science as well. The big bang is a creation myth that can never be proven. (Not saying it's not a true myth.)

That's true of science as a whole. You can't prove it's right, you can only prove it wrong. So far, nothing comes close, and the Big Bang theory is the most accurate description of the evidence we see.

I'm interested in the credentials of the scientists involved as well. That's one thing the story failed to mention. I think it mentioned something about them being forensic scientists, but I don't know much more than that.

Bees would like to have a dance with you, to discuss their view of language

It is well established that what bees do and what humans do communicatively is fundamentally different. The two are not in any meaningful sense equivalent -- they are different in kind not scale.

Not that I doubt you, but I'd like to see a citation on this. Phrases like "well established", and "research shows", without supporting documentation always set off my bullshit detector.

As I understand it with my equally worthless piece of paper, all known forms of communication essentially boil down to a metaphorical representation of some piece of information (possibly synonymous with archetype in the Jungian sense) that an organism wishes to pass on to others. Short of telepathy or a literal and complete recreation*, where an idea could be communicated unambiguously and with total clarity, all communication devolves into a game of charades, where the content must be selectively presented by one organism and then interpreted by another using whatever means they have at their disposal (wild gesticulation, sound, pheromones, etc.)

*You might run into ethical problems trying to teach a class about the Holocaust.

Bees would like to have a dance with you, to discuss their view of language

It is well established that what bees do and what humans do communicatively is fundamentally different. The two are not in any meaningful sense equivalent -- they are different in kind not scale.

Not that I doubt you, but I'd like to see a citation on this. Phrases like "well established", and "research shows", without supporting documentation always set off my bullshit detector.

As I understand it with my equally worthless piece of paper, all known forms of communication essentially boil down to a metaphorical representation of some piece of information (possibly synonymous with archetype in the Jungian sense) that an organism wishes to pass on to others. Short of telepathy, where an idea could be communicated unambiguously and with total clarity, all communication devolves into a game of charades, where the content must be selectively presented by one organism and then interpreted by another using whatever means they have at their disposal (wild gesticulation, sound, pheromones, etc.)

The gesticulation actually makes a really big difference, too. My German is pretty good, but if it weren't for my own and my friends' ability to use movement and slightly exagerated tone and expression, it would be difficult at times to understand each other. We don't NEED it to understand each other, but the combination with the words makes it that much easier and we end up having to think less about what the other is trying to say.

Somehow I get the feeling that this is a deliberate joke and both the Ars piece and this thread display huge fail in sarcasm detectors.

Or maybe I'm just an idiot. Most likely.

I was thinking the same thing, this has to be a joke or something. I have never seen a journal with only one paper. How can a paper be taken seriously if the authors create a journal to publish it? Regardless if the study is on a hot topic or not.

The website of the journal itself is a joke, nowhere there is a mention of the editor-in-chief or scientific board or equivalent. This is much worse than those obscure open-access journals asking for submissions one gets in their email inboxes all the time.

Interestingly Ars reported they did send the genetic sequences. I wonder how this will turn out...

I will certainly give ikkarus benefit of the doubt where written word is concerned, because it *does* add a longitudinal component to communication that simply isn't possible in immediate interaction.

What I mean by this is that as a direct result of writing and literacy, an argument can survive its author, and be interpreted by a vastly greater audience than would be otherwise possible. This isn't to say that written language doesn't also have the problem of being misinterpreted, because it does, but it also introduces new and much more interesting ways of being misinterpreted (translation, anachronism, natural evolution of meaning within language, degree of literacy in the reader, the medium the content is being presented on/in, etc.)

I wish I had a fibre-glass stealth fighter and a Sasquatch. I'd fly it to the Moon (remembering to never leave the Sasquatch alone with the chicken, or the chicken with the grain), where I'd establish a lunar colony consisting of cloned Sasquatches, who would go on to create a utopian society free from discrimination on the basis of too much body hair, and ultimately achieve galaxia.

As for 'a historic' versus 'an historic,' the former is well accepted in American English, while the later is well accepted in British English. (I have a very expensive, but utterly useless piece of paper that says I'm an expert in such things. LOL LOL LOL.)

Well I don't even have a useless piece of paper, but could this difference be because of pronunciation? As far as I can tell, the British don't emphasize the 'h' in 'historic' as much as we do in the States, and the 'a' vs 'an' thing seems to mostly be about ease of pronunciation -- it's harder to say "a aardvark" than "an aardvark" since the former forces you to insert a stop or to just blur the 'a' out of existence.

I wish I had a fibre-glass stealth fighter and a Sasquatch. I'd fly it to the Moon (remembering to never leave the Sasquatch alone with the chicken, or the chicken with the grain), where I'd establish a lunar colony consisting of cloned Sasquatches, who would go on to create a utopian society free from discrimination on the basis of too much body hair, and ultimately achieve galaxia.

Why can't the chicken have some grain? If you only have enough grain for one meal for one chicken then your space colony is going to have problems, and don't you want a healthy hen?

Also don't be surprised when your 'utopia' starts discriminating against people with too little body hair, you shaved monkey, you (and let's be frank -- regardless of how hairy you might be by human standards, that's what you'd be to a sasquatch).

As for 'a historic' versus 'an historic,' the former is well accepted in American English, while the later is well accepted in British English. (I have a very expensive, but utterly useless piece of paper that says I'm an expert in such things. LOL LOL LOL.)

Well I don't even have a useless piece of paper, but could this difference be because of pronunciation? As far as I can tell, the British don't emphasize the 'h' in 'historic' as much as we do in the States, and the 'a' vs 'an' thing seems to mostly be about ease of pronunciation -- it's harder to say "a aardvark" than "an aardvark" since the former forces you to insert a stop or to just blur the 'a' out of existence.

That's exactly why, and an example of something we actually do without thinking about it. The video i linked earlier is intended to demonstrate exactly that: we modify sounds and how we actually say a word to ease the flow from one to the next; basically, we're lazy. My professor was able to better explain it, and it really requires speech to demonstrate it in practice, but it's a very interesting thing, IMO.

Don't be fooled, sheeple! The RAND Corporation, in concert with the reverse vampires and David Icke's transdimensional blood-drinking shape changing space lizards, is trying to convince you that the Sasquatch is some kind of proto-human. The truth is that they are really the survivors of the ancient aliens that built the pyramids because angles and stuff.

I agree--compared to the normal BigFoot ramblings--this is solid science! It's in print somewhere, so it has to be true, right?

In other news, I seem to recall reading about the original "founder" of the Bigfoot scatology finally 'fessing up that it was, after all, a complete hoax from the beginning. Who might've guessed? Gaw-Lee. I also read that the authors of the original Amityville Horror house confessed that although murders did take place in the house, which is a matter of public record, everything they said came later was--incredibly!--fiction.

But who cares about such petty details? Practically nobody. People prefer myth to truth, it seems, and often label the truth a myth in order to create rational grounds for rejecting it. Interesting corollary on human nature, no doubt about it.

"The data conclusively proves that the Sasquatch exist as an extant hominin and are a direct maternal descendant of modern humans."

Shouldn't that read "The data conclusively prove that the..." ? I thought "data" was plural. "Data set," for example, would be singular.

Data is plural? Which do you prefer: "very few data" or "very little data" to describe a small number of samples of something? If you said "little", you're treating "data" as a singular mass noun, like "milk", instead of as a plural count noun, like "apples". These prescriptivist rules that people come up with are really quite silly, and just show a lack of any real analysis of language.

EDIT: And regardless of what you think on the "few" versus "little" question with "data", here is how it is actually used in English.

You're technically correct that common usage of data is quickly changing, but it is still completely required (without exception) to use it as a plural word in "real" scientific journals. In other words, this is one more piece of evidence that this journal isn't really a scientific, peer-reviewed outlet.

"The data conclusively proves that the Sasquatch exist as an extant hominin and are a direct maternal descendant of modern humans."

Shouldn't that read "The data conclusively prove that the..." ? I thought "data" was plural. "Data set," for example, would be singular.

Data is plural? Which do you prefer: "very few data" or "very little data" to describe a small number of samples of something? If you said "little", you're treating "data" as a singular mass noun, like "milk", instead of as a plural count noun, like "apples". These prescriptivist rules that people come up with are really quite silly, and just show a lack of any real analysis of language.

EDIT: And regardless of what you think on the "few" versus "little" question with "data", here is how it is actually used in English.

You're technically correct that common usage of data is quickly changing, but it is still completely required (without exception) to use it as a plural word in "real" scientific journals. In other words, this is one more piece of evidence that this journal isn't really a scientific, peer-reviewed outlet.

We're getting far too strict and pedantic here. Yes, data is a plural, but depending on usage, it's treated as singular. I thought the example of "water" that I gave, as well as his example of milk, got that point across quite well. It's a plurality of components, but it's used, gramatically, as if it were singular, in some contexts. It might help to think of the word like a container for what it refers to; data refers to mroe than one piece of information, but when using the word it's one thing. Much like .avi is a container for two separate sets of information: the audio encoded using one codec, and the video encoded with another, but stored and used as a single entity.

I wish I had a fibre-glass stealth fighter and a Sasquatch. I'd fly it to the Moon (remembering to never leave the Sasquatch alone with the chicken, or the chicken with the grain), where I'd establish a lunar colony consisting of cloned Sasquatches, who would go on to create a utopian society free from discrimination on the basis of too much body hair, and ultimately achieve galaxia.

Why can't the chicken have some grain? If you only have enough grain for one meal for one chicken then your space colony is going to have problems, and don't you want a healthy hen?

Also don't be surprised when your 'utopia' starts discriminating against people with too little body hair, you shaved monkey, you (and let's be frank -- regardless of how hairy you might be by human standards, that's what you'd be to a sasquatch).

I'd actually just be dropping them off and coming back. What the Sasquatch does with the chicken, grain, cloning centre, alien artifacts, and 1979 Lincoln Town Car is entirely up to him, as long as utopia is the result.

Bees would like to have a dance with you, to discuss their view of language

It is well established that what bees do and what humans do communicatively is fundamentally different. The two are not in any meaningful sense equivalent -- they are different in kind not scale.

Not that I doubt you, but I'd like to see a citation on this. Phrases like "well established", and "research shows", without supporting documentation always set off my bullshit detector....

Can do. (I'm only going to give you two. You can use ye olde Google to find a boat load more.) Note that when these quotes use "language" they refer specifically to human natural language.

Quote:

[T]he differences between language and the most sophisticated systems of animal communication that we are so far aware of are qualitative rather than quantitative. All such systems have a fixed and finite number of topics on which information can be exchanged, whereas in language the list is open-ended, indeed infinite.

Derek Bickerton, Language & Species (1990) p. 8.

Quote:

Nonhuman communication systems are based on one of three designs: a finite repertory of calls (one for warnings of predators, one for claims of territory, and so on), a continuous analog signal that registers the magnitude of some state (the livelier the dance of the bee, the richer the food source that it is telling its hivemates about), or a series of random variations on a theme (a birdsong repeated with a new twist each time: Charlie Parker with feathers). As we have seen, human language has a very different design. The discrete combinatorial system called "grammar" makes human language infinite (there is no limit to the number of complex words or sentence in a language), digital (this infinity is achieved by rearranging discrete elements in particular orders and combinations, not by varying some signal along a continuum like the mercury in a thermometer), and compositional (each of the finite combinations has a different meaning predictable from the meanings of its parts and the rules and principles arranging them).

In other news, I seem to recall reading about the original "founder" of the Bigfoot scatology finally 'fessing up that it was, after all, a complete hoax from the beginning. Who might've guessed? Gaw-Lee. I also read that the authors of the original Amityville Horror house confessed that although murders did take place in the house, which is a matter of public record, everything they said came later was--incredibly!--fiction.

But how do you know which is the lie? Maybe they are lying now when they say they made it all up. Maybe it's a conspiracy to cover up the original truth of their lies. (wait... what?)

I wish I had a fibre-glass stealth fighter and a Sasquatch. I'd fly it to the Moon (remembering to never leave the Sasquatch alone with the chicken, or the chicken with the grain), where I'd establish a lunar colony consisting of cloned Sasquatches, who would go on to create a utopian society free from discrimination on the basis of too much body hair, and ultimately achieve galaxia.

Can I take the opportunity to recommend* the Philips Bodygroom, for all your body hair discrimination needs?

* disclaimer, I was** an employee of Philips** not for about 15 years though, so this is not a sponsored message****** the Bodygroom is genuinely**** great though**** really, my girlfriend agrees. However, I am obliged to note - other Sasquatch de-hairing methods are available********** but never, ever, ever Immac your balls

"The data conclusively proves that the Sasquatch exist as an extant hominin and are a direct maternal descendant of modern humans."

Shouldn't that read "The data conclusively prove that the..." ? I thought "data" was plural. "Data set," for example, would be singular.

Data is plural? Which do you prefer: "very few data" or "very little data" to describe a small number of samples of something? If you said "little", you're treating "data" as a singular mass noun, like "milk", instead of as a plural count noun, like "apples". These prescriptivist rules that people come up with are really quite silly, and just show a lack of any real analysis of language.

EDIT: And regardless of what you think on the "few" versus "little" question with "data", here is how it is actually used in English.

You're technically correct that common usage of data is quickly changing, but it is still completely required (without exception) to use it as a plural word in "real" scientific journals. In other words, this is one more piece of evidence that this journal isn't really a scientific, peer-reviewed outlet.

We're getting far too strict and pedantic here. Yes, data is a plural, but depending on usage, it's treated as singular. I thought the example of "water" that I gave, as well as his example of milk, got that point across quite well. It's a plurality of components, but it's used, gramatically, as if it were singular, in some contexts. It might help to think of the word like a container for what it refers to; data refers to mroe than one piece of information, but when using the word it's one thing. Much like .avi is a container for two separate sets of information: the audio encoded using one codec, and the video encoded with another, but stored and used as a single entity.

I think you missed my point. I was agreeing with you while pointing out that among scientific journals, the use of data as a plural word is universal. The fact that the authors of the paper used it otherwise is evidence that this paper was not subjected to standard journal editing and, more importantly, probably wasn't actually reviewed by any practicing scientists. This is a topic that comes up on the first day of every scientific publishing course.

As for 'a historic' versus 'an historic,' the former is well accepted in American English, while the later is well accepted in British English. (I have a very expensive, but utterly useless piece of paper that says I'm an expert in such things. LOL LOL LOL.)

Well I don't even have a useless piece of paper, but could this difference be because of pronunciation? As far as I can tell, the British don't emphasize the 'h' in 'historic' as much as we do in the States, and the 'a' vs 'an' thing seems to mostly be about ease of pronunciation -- it's harder to say "a aardvark" than "an aardvark" since the former forces you to insert a stop or to just blur the 'a' out of existence.

In essence, you are correct, but pronunciation is not just an/a historical happenstance. "Pronunciation" in linguistics is at the core of Phonology, which is the linguistic subunit responsible for the systematic organization of sound. Each language (and dialect thereof) has a distinct set of phonological rules that generate "legal" phonemic constructs in that language or dialect. This system is as important and as complicated as syntax (grammar). The situation at hand (a/an historic) is the confluence of two rules: one being minimization (making production as efficient or "easy" as possible) and the other being clarity (making phoneme/morpheme boundaries distinct.) The "a aardvark" example also includes a rule (in English at least) that strongly marks inter-phoneme/morpheme glottal stops.

"The data conclusively proves that the Sasquatch exist as an extant hominin and are a direct maternal descendant of modern humans."

Shouldn't that read "The data conclusively prove that the..." ? I thought "data" was plural. "Data set," for example, would be singular.

Data is plural? Which do you prefer: "very few data" or "very little data" to describe a small number of samples of something? If you said "little", you're treating "data" as a singular mass noun, like "milk", instead of as a plural count noun, like "apples". These prescriptivist rules that people come up with are really quite silly, and just show a lack of any real analysis of language.

EDIT: And regardless of what you think on the "few" versus "little" question with "data", here is how it is actually used in English.

You're technically correct that common usage of data is quickly changing, but it is still completely required (without exception) to use it as a plural word in "real" scientific journals. In other words, this is one more piece of evidence that this journal isn't really a scientific, peer-reviewed outlet.

We're getting far too strict and pedantic here. Yes, data is a plural, but depending on usage, it's treated as singular. I thought the example of "water" that I gave, as well as his example of milk, got that point across quite well. It's a plurality of components, but it's used, gramatically, as if it were singular, in some contexts. It might help to think of the word like a container for what it refers to; data refers to mroe than one piece of information, but when using the word it's one thing. Much like .avi is a container for two separate sets of information: the audio encoded using one codec, and the video encoded with another, but stored and used as a single entity.

I think you missed my point. I was agreeing with you while pointing out that among scientific journals, the use of data as a plural word is universal. The fact that the authors of the paper used it otherwise is evidence that this paper was not subjected to standard journal editing and, more importantly, probably wasn't actually reviewed by any practicing scientists. This is a topic that comes up on the first day of every scientific publishing course.

Can you cite a specific passage in a paper (preferably one not behind a paywall, so I can independently verify the quote) in which the phrase "few data" appears, when colloquially at least, it would be "little data," as in the example he posed?

As I said earlier, I'm no expert, but I do have an above-average grasp of English, and I can't get over how awkward "too few data" feels. It's that specific grammatical context that is in question here, not whether the word, in itself, is always plural (since, like "dice," it always is).

As for 'a historic' versus 'an historic,' the former is well accepted in American English, while the later is well accepted in British English. (I have a very expensive, but utterly useless piece of paper that says I'm an expert in such things. LOL LOL LOL.)

Well I don't even have a useless piece of paper, but could this difference be because of pronunciation? As far as I can tell, the British don't emphasize the 'h' in 'historic' as much as we do in the States, and the 'a' vs 'an' thing seems to mostly be about ease of pronunciation -- it's harder to say "a aardvark" than "an aardvark" since the former forces you to insert a stop or to just blur the 'a' out of existence.

In essence, you are correct, but pronunciation is not just an/a historical happenstance. "Pronunciation" in linguistics is at the core of Phonology, which is the linguistic subunit responsible for the systematic organization of sound. Each language (and dialect thereof) has a distinct set of phonological rules that generate "legal" phonemic constructs in that language or dialect. This system is as important and as complicated as syntax (grammar). The situation at hand (a/an historic) is the confluence of two rules: one being minimization (making production as efficient or "easy" as possible) and the other being clarity (making phoneme/morpheme boundaries distinct.) The "a aardvark" example also includes a rule (in English at least) that strongly marks inter-phoneme/morpheme glottal stops.

Aha, I think...

One of the most misunderstood 'rules' in English that I notice is that people think you use "an" before a vowel, when the reality is you use "an" before a vowel sound. Hence I say (and more importantly, write) "an hotel" or "an historic" because I'm British and the H is silent in those words, but uncontroversially on t'other side of the pond you also say "an hour", possibly without even realising it.

So anyway, the "aha" is - you're saying this is a phonological rule rather than a syntactical or grammatical one as such?

I wonder out loud, why do such rules make it into the written language? I've had a couple of pints and I'm writing on an iPhone, so I'm not going to research this (i.e. I won't be offended if shown to be an idiot,) but written English in particular by and large is not phonetic, so I wonder why in this instance we 'care' about representing the spoken in the written when in so many others we don't...

As for 'a historic' versus 'an historic,' the former is well accepted in American English, while the later is well accepted in British English. (I have a very expensive, but utterly useless piece of paper that says I'm an expert in such things. LOL LOL LOL.)

Well I don't even have a useless piece of paper, but could this difference be because of pronunciation? As far as I can tell, the British don't emphasize the 'h' in 'historic' as much as we do in the States, and the 'a' vs 'an' thing seems to mostly be about ease of pronunciation -- it's harder to say "a aardvark" than "an aardvark" since the former forces you to insert a stop or to just blur the 'a' out of existence.

In essence, you are correct, but pronunciation is not just an/a historical happenstance. "Pronunciation" in linguistics is at the core of Phonology, which is the linguistic subunit responsible for the systematic organization of sound. Each language (and dialect thereof) has a distinct set of phonological rules that generate "legal" phonemic constructs in that language or dialect. This system is as important and as complicated as syntax (grammar). The situation at hand (a/an historic) is the confluence of two rules: one being minimization (making production as efficient or "easy" as possible) and the other being clarity (making phoneme/morpheme boundaries distinct.) The "a aardvark" example also includes a rule (in English at least) that strongly marks inter-phoneme/morpheme glottal stops.

Aha, I think...

One of the most misunderstood 'rules' in English that I notice is that people think you use "an" before a vowel, when the reality is you use "an" before a vowel sound. Hence I say (and more importantly, write) "an hotel" or "an historic" because I'm British and the H is silent in those words, but uncontroversially on t'other side of the pond you also say "an hour", possibly without even realising it.

So anyway, the "aha" is - you're saying this is a phonological rule rather than a syntactical or grammatical one as such?

I wonder out loud, why do such rules make it into the written language? I've had a couple of pints and I'm writing on an iPhone, so I'm not going to research this (i.e. I won't be offended if shown to be an idiot,) but written English in particular by and large is not phonetic, so I wonder why in this instance we 'care' about representing the spoken in the written when in so many others we don't...

That's actually a really easy one: which came first, written or spoken language? Written languages (excluding something like cave paintings) are a way of turning spoken language into fixed images, be they letters and words, or ideograms. The written language follows the spoken; it's only very recently that we see the written influencing the spoken (such as saying "lol" rather than only laughing).

...So anyway, the "aha" is - you're saying this is a phonological rule rather than a syntactical or grammatical one as such?

I wonder out loud, why do such rules make it into the written language? I've had a couple of pints and I'm writing on an iPhone, so I'm not going to research this (i.e. I won't be offended if shown to be an idiot,) but written English in particular by and large is not phonetic, so I wonder why in this instance we 'care' about representing the spoken in the written when in so many others we don't...

Indeed it is a phonological rule. This is a whole other level of systematic organization in language. One that is often overlooked or under appreciated because syntax casts such a long shadow.

As to written language, well, (get your flame war machine ready) it isn't really language at all. It is a codification of language that is very conservative, that is, it doesn't change nearly as dynamically as language does. It is usually fixed at some point in time by some major event and then left alone for years or centuries. English spelling was actually quite phonetic at one time. The English language changed (see the Great Vowel Shift as an example) but spelling did not, hence the cluster f*** we have now.

Thank you for providing these. Pinker's reputation as a polymath precedes him (I've also had the opportunity to see him speak on several occasions), and while this quibble certainly goes beyond the scope of my request, I'd be inclined to challenge what looks to be two fatal assumptions that he makes in his claim:

1) That human modes of communication aren't based on the same three criteria as nonhuman ones. Language as it exists now didn't spring into being overnight, and while it is quite complex and elaborate now, it wasn't always so. Inasmuch as words are metaphorical references to past events (e.g. vandalism refers to the sacking of Rome in 476C.E.)(1), there are ultimately a vast, but finite number of them in circulation. While word order in complex sentences may alter the interpreted meaning in nearly infinite subtle ways, the words themselves, as with animal modes of communication, are only useful so long as other humans "get" the metaphor. Failing to understand one or two in a sentence reduces any interpreted meaning to gibberish. An example of this would be a English-speaking Texan trying to understand Chinese - while he might be able to infer that they're pointing our food sources or warning each other about enemies (they aren't starving, and they seem to have an affinity for walls), what he would hear would be essentially random-sounding bird-song, which leads me to my second point.

2) That animal language is "random". Neuropsychologist Stanley Coren was able to come to some conclusions about the stability and consistency of animal grammar, vocabulary, and communication through his work with dogs(2). Off the top of my head (I make no absolute claims about the veracity of these figures), I seem to recall that socialized dogs are "bilingual", with a working vocabulary of 250 or so human words, and the ability to understand basic arithmetic up to the number 12. That some animals are able to develop a working lexicon in a human language suggests that it may not be as complex or infinite as Pinker claims. I do acknowledge that dogs are a created species, an offshoot of grey wolves, rather than naturally occurring, which certainly muddies the waters.

(1) See Antonio Gramsci's Prison Diaries, in particular theories of historicism and language.

(2) Coren, S. The Intelligence of Dogs. Don't have my copy handy, but you can google the particulars.

Thank you both for your replies (properly quoting them is beyond what I can be arsed on my phone. I am also increasingly pished.)

That makes sense; the only thing I'd say is I'm not sure it's really easy; I think the supposition that structured verbal communication predates written communication is actually a non-trivial one.

I'm not arguing I hasten to add; it seems obvious when put like that. I'm just not entirely sure it's a "goes without saying." I mean, pissing against a tree to mark your territory is a form of 'written' communication in a sense - certainly it's a shorter jump from that to carving your mark in said tree than is the jump to the spoken word, so I can envisage a world in which written did predate spoken.

All fascinating anyway; thank you for the knowledge.

(Ikkarus, I'm genuinely interested if you do have any book recommendations - only saying in case you missed the post where I asked, if you don't fair enough ;-).)

Thank you both for your replies (properly quoting them is beyond what I can be arsed on my phone. I am also increasingly pished.)

That makes sense; the only thing I'd say is I'm not sure it's really easy; I think the supposition that structured verbal communication predates written communication is actually a non-trivial one.

I'm not arguing I hasten to add; it seems obvious when put like that. I'm just not entirely sure it's a "goes without saying." I mean, pissing against a tree to mark your territory is a form of 'written' communication in a sense - certainly it's a shorter jump from that to carving your mark in said tree than is the jump to the spoken word, so I can envisage a world in which written did predate spoken.

All fascinating anyway; thank you for the knowledge.

(Ikkarus, I'm genuinely interested if you do have any book recommendations - only saying in case you missed the post where I asked, if you don't fair enough ;-).)

Posting from my tablet while at the pub, myself, so I understand. As far as books, while I couldn't name any academic ones, anything from Neil Stephensen, has a strong linguistic influence, and explores the topic obliquely. Snow Crash, in its entirety, is a reference to how language shapes thought, and one of the list of "must read" scifi works of the last century.